To not understand why people get married?

[Mummyto4WM]

Waste of money and merely a show to the world

That's me being flippant but I genuinely don't get it. My partner is desperate to get married. He's already divorced, a divorce following his ex-wife running off with another man. What are the benefits of marriage, when so many end in costly divorce?

Not sure what there is to understand. And I say this as someone who doesn’t want to get married, but whose dp does.

Being married offers security, especially where one person takes a hit to their career to Have and raise children. It also ensures that one can’t build assets up at the expense of the other and just walk away.

You can get many of the legal protections in other ways as you have. Or get married.

My aunt got married at 70. To her partner of 40 years, due to inheritance tax rules.

marriage is the same as any other legal contract. Will suit some people, won’t suit others. Is a good idea for some people, not for others. Might not be right for someone now, but will be in 10 years time.

This again.

"Why do people get married, urgh, I have no idea because I'm so tunnel visioned!"

I don't understand why people feel the need to own pets but I don't have to keep harping on about it, I just respect the fact that people like and do different things.

It's a totally different process.
Financial proceedings usually go on hold, until any child arrangement issue is resolved.
So that all happens once we've closed our involvement.

A judge will decide what should happen with money/houses/ etc.. once s/he knows what we recommend in relation to the children's welfare.

I don’t regret my hospital marriage, dh died eight days later. We were getting married anyway, just brought it forward.

we married for love but I’m not going to lie we were both aware it would make things much easier for me afterwards.

I love having dhs name.. it means a lot to me

Yes, precisely. The law is set up to assume that the mother is the lower paid partner and the main carer. The reality now is women are on average more highly qualified than men. Women have more earning potential and many are the higher paid of the mother and father.

Meanwhile women are still the main carers for children even in such relationships. In fact, research indicates that when the woman earns more than man does even less of his share of domestic duties on average than when a couple earn the same.

The legal system hugely penalises such women. They end up having to pay off an ex-husband AND be the sole provider/ carer. No allowance for this is made in divorce proceedings. Then the man is meant to pay a pathetic amount of money nowhere bear 50% of the cost of raising a child (if he even bothers to pay at all and no consequences if he does not), having waltzed off with a large chunk of the money the woman has earned as well.

I would never, ever get married again. It's a fool's game. It has nothing to do with love. You can gave love without risking your financial security.

Then to boot you can look forward to being taxed far more than couples with the same household income, lone parents subsidising couples with 48 hours per day to do what we must do in 24. The whole thing is beyond a joke.

Having eloped on the cheap, it definitely not to show the world nor do I think it was a waste of money.

Most of it was just we wanted to, we had spent a lot of time discussing what we wanted in the future and that included marriage. Also, neither of us personally would commit to someone including moving in with someone permanently or having children with someone who wouldn't put in legal protections. Some of those protections could happen in other routes as others mentioned and I would have been open to considering those, but that can be a far more expensive route to get all the paperwork in place.

No one is forcing you to get married OP or even saying you should.

Pps have covered the legal aspects so I will cover the wedding aspect - What a waste of money and show to the world

Whats wrong with having a party, some fun, dressing up nicely and participating in the traditions of your culture? If course there's nothing wrong if this doesn't appeal, but for many it does. I'm actually divorced but I don't regret my wedding day. It was fun at the time. I'm not rich or anything, but if I had that 10k back now, would it make a significant difference to my life - no it wouldn't.

"To not understand why people get married? Waste of money and merely a show to the world"
Newsflash, a marriage is different to a wedding!

I agree with a lot of your post, but important to spell out that despite women being more qualified than men as a cohort, we still earn less on average.

I got married to my DH because I loved him, respected him and wanted to make my life with him. I wanted to make that public and legal commitment to him. And, I don’t regret a day of it. I also took his name - shoot me now.🙄

He felt the same, it was just right for us.

On a practical level, it also helps with bereavement. My DH died last year, and being legally wed smoothed the legal way.

@Mummyto4WM If you're not overly keen on the idea of getting married - and I think you've put your views on it very well - why not discuss the idea of some sort of commitment ceremony or similar? I believe a lot of registry offices offer that which means the celebrant usually covers the same venues as they would for a non-church wedding. I think you can also have it in your own home as it's not a legal thing.

You can exchange rings, have readings but the ceremony has no legal status. Basically it's a wedding without the paper work or legal standing.

I suppose the question is does your OH want to marry to show commitment or does he want to marry to be married (being married was important to DH and I for example)?

We bought a property together as broadly equal earners and if we split up I wanted a legal basis for our separation. I also had much higher earning potential and was largely asking DH to not pursue his career so I could pursue mine with a view to him retiring early to be a SAHD or house husband.

Marriage meant that we could go into building a life together as a partnership planning for the best possible future, but meaning we would have an equitable and court mandated protection in the event we decide not to stay together.

And it is easier for tax now to transfer assets between ourselves and for inheritance tax.

I would die on the hill to not make this happen. There are plenty of cocklodgers who would benefit immensely from any such provisions.

You shouldn’t just assume the rights to someone else’s assets just by choosing to live together or have children together. You should be able to choose separately whether you want to share finances in this way.

If you want the rights associated with marriage, then go and sign the piece of paper that gives you those rights. It’s really not difficult.

If you choose to have children with someone who refuses to confer those rights onto you, then that’s a pretty big red flag that they’re not going to treat you fairly in future and you might want to rethink whether they are the right parent for your hypothetical children.

Sorry, I’m not deliberately being obtuse but how can you make recommendations as to a child’s welfare when the financial position of the parent is uncertain? Doesn’t that mean the eg where they live will be uncertain?

I married him because I love him. We had a tiny wedding, no honeymoon, nothing showy, no waste of money because there was no money to waste.

On a practical side. I married a serviceman from a foreign country. Without being married I would not have got a visa, command sponsorship, access to military medical and dental facilities, and access on base for shopping. The military moved us around the world, paying for our transport and the transportation of our household goods.

There are tax and other financial implications. Marriage offers a degree of financial protection if you have children and give up work or go part time in order to care for them. It affects whether you will be considered next of kin in a medical emergency.

I don't think you should marry him if you don't really really want to.

I married my husband because I wanted to be married to him and spend the rest of my life with him, and I didn't think for a second it would end in divorce. (We did take steps beforehand to protect each of us in that eventuality, but almost 20 years later I still don't think it will ever happen.)

.., I hear about what others are saying about how marriage gives women security, but when as women, you hold the babies and all the financial cards... im not sure marriage is always as lucrative as many on this thread seek to portray.

You need to know what the legal implications are -tax - rights etc as it won't benefit everyone as everyone has different circumstances.

But I know more people blindside by not being married than ones who are - but in either case knowing what marriage is and what it means is best starting point.

I married as I wanted kids and felt marriage would be best position for that and DH agreed.

More definitely - you MUST remake your will if you marry because all wills automatically become invalid on marriage unless they contain wording to say that 'this will is made in expectaion of my marriage to..."

I got married for legal reasons.

We co-owned a flat and I wanted children so though I loved him (at the time) the marriage part was merely getting a better standing under the law.

I'm divorced now. I don't see it as a waste of time in one sense because many of us want to believe the love story, and you think it's worth it. But I'm glad we kept our finances separate 😂.

My brother has never married his DP and I keep suggesting a civil partnership. His DP was married previously and doesn't want to go again. Would a CP be a compromise OP?

The main tax advantage is in IHT. On first death the deceased can pass as much as they want to their spouse without any IHT, and any of their tax-free allowance that they don't use can be added to their spouse's allowance.

The possible other tax advantage (I'm not sure of this, civil partnerships would be covered but I don't know about just living together) is that if one partner isn't earing enough to use their full tax-free allowance can be passed to their spouse to use against their income. So if husband is earning £25k and wife is a SAHM with no income, husband won't pay any tax, whereas if unmarried, whereas if unmarried it's possible that working partner in same situation would have to pay tax on about half their income.

Marriage is a legal, financial contract like insurance which is designed to protect the financially weakest partner.

It’s very binary as to whether it’s worthwhile or not. If you generate most or all of the household income it’s a net negative because you are likely to lose out financially if you separate. If you don’t generate income it’s a huge win.

If you are a woman who doesn’t work or is planning to stop work to raise children, marriage is essential. If you work and generate your own income and particularly if you out earn your partner it’s a bad idea.

The rest of it is just window dressing.

@RainintheDesert CP has all of the same legal drawbacks as marriage.

A friend sold her flat and moved in to her fiancés house, where they lived for several years.
Weeks before their wedding he died very suddenly. His grown up children inherited the house, kicked her out and left her homeless for a while, as the money from her flat was now too little to buy again.
Sofa surfing among friends in your 50s is no joke, and the mixture of grief, anger and fear for the future left her devastated.